Excerpt from My First Novel Yellow Socks Confessions of a Non Don Juan

An Excerpt from my 2010 novel Yellow Socks- Confessions of a Non Don Juan

 

Skeleton Woman or Things Like Me Don’t Happen To You

 

Christ it happened again. Another notch in my “girls that want to be my friend” belt. It made sense. We were perfect friends and she was real cute too. I kept thinking that I was ok with it. I’d be happy just being a friend again. I keep turning to God for strength to accept my fate as “Friend to all women” that I’m attracted to. My acceptance level seems to be ok. I go to my happy place. I go to my cave. I say the serenity prayer over and over I am sure that I will be ok with this. Yes I will. (no I won’t)

 

Cut to a scene from Fight Club

 

TYLER

Stop it! This is your pain — this is your burning hand. It’s right here! Look at it.

 

JACK

I’m going to my cave. I’m going to my cave to find my power animal!

 

TYLER

No, don’t deal with this the way those dead people do. Come on

!

JACK

I get the point, ok, please!

 

TYLER

No, what you’re feeling is premature enlightenment.

 

Ok. I get the idea. Feel the pain. Feel the hurt. Feel the rejection saturating my heart until I bleed more than just these words all over the place and finger my open sore of a brain as it wants to dwell on her over and over again. Screaming and roaring her name with anger and grief and sometimes a slight relief that it’s done and I know that she will not reject me again unless I go back for more and more or less or a little bite of her cheeseburger and a sip of her Pepsi to tide me over until the next one comes along with better food and spirits for my, for me for. Four scores of seven years itch as I scratch the weathered tired out mongrel of an ego that was left stray years ago in a pound for wayward hearts and letches that can only love and never be loved.

 

The pain of being a friend. A friend. I’ve heard that “Let’s just be friends” millions of times in my life as I gargle a new mouthwash and toothpaste hoping my breath will be the answer to my problem. My problem is as follows: me, myself and I. We altogether are the problem. We want to be loved so bad that we give off the vibe that scares the shit out of women so they just want to be friends. Friends. Friends. I think to myself that will be fine. Friends is ok. It’ll do. I can accept that. Bullshit! Feel the pain I tell myself. Embrace it. the pain is your friend. To hurt is to be alive. I’ve never been so alive. I’m alive. So alive.

 

“Did you ever hear about the skeleton woman?” Morton asked.

 

“Was that a Glam rock band from the seventies?” I ask.

 

“Ha. Ha. Nah. It’s an ancient Indian story. This guy was fishing in the middle of a lake. He was totally into it. He was relaxed. Not a care in the world except catching the next fish. All of a sudden he feels a tug on his line and he yanks it up. A skeleton appears on his line. He doesn’t realize that it’s attached to his line and he gets scared. He starts paddling his boat away from it but it follows him. He still doesn’t realize that it’s attached to his line. He gets out of his boat and runs into the village and he is carrying his fishing rod and the skeleton is still right behind him. He jumps into his Tee Pee and it follows him in. He lies down and tries to hide not looking at it for a while. When he finally turns to look at the skeleton it has changed into the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. She is his. The moral of the story is that he was minding his own business doing something he enjoyed and that’s when the right woman came along. In other words when you are not looking for love is when it will find you. ”

 

“I know that but it’s so fucking hard to stay focused on other things without thinking about how much I want to be loved. Fall in love. Ya know?” I responded.

 

“I know. I know.” Morton said.

 

“We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” Tyler Durden

 

To purchase click here

The Son of the Cockroach Lady

Caterpillar stairway leads me to the basement so I can hide from the monsters called reality. Comfort in the dark corner with worn warped plywood Grandpop set up as my office years ago complete with a make shift desk to draw on and read comic books. 1002 Niagara Rd. The invisible dog Grandpop warned me about never came to me. Was he teasing or crazy? I’ll never know. I liked it there hiding from hippies of my dreams that were going to hurt me somehow. My dreams, visions and creativity flourished, as an 8-year-old’s should.

It was much less scary than the House on Haunted Hill, The House by the Cemetery, The House by the park, The Last House on the Left, The Last House on a Dead End Street, The House that Jack Built and my former house on Monitor rd where I lived with my paranoid schizophrenic mother. The House of Cockroaches. The neighbors called her cockroach lady. I was the Son of the Cockroach Lady.

It was (is) a small part of Camden NJ. A village they called it. Fairview Village. Nice enough to my childhood nightmarish recollections. It was a big wonderland filled with talking gray trees, shimmering golden green grass, and dirty shirtless white kids that called my name and eventually called me names.

Daddy gone, mommy in crazy hospital, I moved on Niagara Rd with Grandmom and Grandpop. I got fat and didn’t like school. Too many children. Too many rules. Too many teachers. I made fun of myself after being made fun of for being fat. I wore pants that were labeled Husky. Kids called me Husky. I went to the basement or sat in front of the TV and I would draw and draw and draw.

The neighborhood worsened as I got older. I got worse as the neighborhood got older. I escaped when I was 11-years-old.

Now I am back. I feel more afraid than I did as child. I took a walk yesterday to see the 2 houses I lived in and they were different, smaller, odd. The entire neighborhood shrunk in size, grew in population and crime. I was almost the scared scarred little white boy being stared at and made fun of once again. I wore levis instead of Huskys.

Monitor Road House -in the middle

Suck My Poem (reprise pt1)

Sleepless in New Jersey. Catatonic.

 

Careless. Reckless in my mind. My mind.

 

Count my fingers to pass time.

 

Count sheep at 2 in the afternoon.

 

I’d count my failures but there’s too many.

 

I’m ok.

 

You’re ok.

 

Stuper dooper.

 

Hands wander over my belly into my tight shorts.

 

Quick tug to make sure it’s there.

 

Light a cigarette. Ha. Always light a cigarette.

 

Sleep 10 hours straight then go out then come back and take a 3 hour nap and woke up 5 pm yesterday.

 

No sleep yet. Almost. Sort of. Kind of. Ya know? I know

 

Oh . . . I know.

 

Doze. Wake. No focus. No nothing nada.

 

Try to eat. My stomach is bloated from the water and anti stress tea I drank to make up for the coffee and / / /

 

Ever contemplate death mr Goodpeoples? Not me. Well, not by my own hand.

 

Sex is a foreign country. Relationships are memories so far buried it’s like I’m reading someone else’s story.

 

Not hard to understand myself but I always ask why am I like this? I know why. Sometimes I just won’t tell myself.

 

27 trips to the bathroom. Or was it 30?

 

My best thinking is when I am in the bathroom or on my way to the bathroom or on way back from the bathroom.

 

Pay my rent so I can try and sleep. Waiting. Still waiting. Wabbling.

 

Bullets of words blast through my my my my   . . . .  and hit you softly.

 

A parade of sweat falls everywhere. . . anywhere. I’m burning.

 

Tired.

 

Until.

 

What?

I Lost a Day

I lost a day. An entire day went by and I missed it. I slept 24 hour straight. I don’t remember the last time I did this if ever. It makes sense because the past few weeks I’ve been having days and nights of no sleep at all. My body is changing and changing. My mind is sharp at times and then dull as a board as they say. Whoever they are. I went to bed Tuesday night. Actually it was Wednesday morning at 4:30 am, which used to be the average time to go to bed. I woke up 3 time between then and 4:30 am today, Thursday. Each time I woke up I couldn’t stay awake. I feel ok now. I am not going to fret over missing a day of life but I acknowledge that it happened.

I’m adjusting to life in my new mental and physical condition. Sometimes I am able to fight it and other times I have to surrender to it. I never know when the depression, mania, anxiety or my face pain from the Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN) is going to act up. It seems I’ve been suffering from one or another every single day for months. Some of my conditions worsen with age and I am getting older. Nothing I have has a cure. All I can do is band-aid it and try to move on. I move on.

There are some things I should be doing and hopefully I’ll get to them. I know should quit smoking, cut my caffeine, exercise and eat better. I need to see the doctor more often. In time I’m sure these things are going to happen for health or financial reasons.

I’m over the fact that I missed a day but it kind of blew my mind at first. The concept of losing a day is baffling. I’m a short term Rip Van Winkle. My beard and hair is growing and I am a little unbalanced about what day it is sometimes. I’ll get over it or used to it. Maybe it will go away.

I have to wake up, whatever time that is, and accept what I am for the day whether that is. What I mean is accept the downs and the ups and the pain or whatever the above-mentioned disorders I have for the day. So far I’m doing an ok job accepting myself as is and changing what I can for the day. For today.

Yaatjiyleeih Owjladnhab

I am a Slug

A little something I wrote on April 11th 2009.

I am a slug. I move slowly and eat and shit and sleep and for a few hours a week I move slowly through a job I hate so I can afford to eat and shit and sleep. I’m stuck in this prison shell of a body that looks like a man. An over weight, hairy, balding, middle aged, hunch backed, foot dragging man. I wasn’t always like this. A slug. I was once a young man full of energy that did things. I moved and shook like the best of the movers and shakers. Now I can feel my skin loosen and my limbs get weaker as I slide freakishly slow through a day as if one day everything will fall off my body and the transformation will be complete.

I am a slug. I move slowly and eat and shit and sleep. Love, passion, romance, creativity are not for me. Not this slug. Hope is not for this slug. Dreams are not for this slug. This ole slug is already set in his ways. Eat and shit and sleep. Eat and shit and sleep.

Routine

Man. This not working thing is strange to me. I haven’t been unemployed in years. I may not seem to be the type to thrive on routine but I do. I work better under structure and logic despite my outward appearance and presentation. My entire routine has been shaken up since my break up with my job. Two weeks today and I guess I’m still in shock a little bit. I’m halfway between acceptance and denial.

The first few days I ran around taking care of business. I applied for unemployment. I finished editing my book so I can take some of this free time and try and get it published. I took care of dental and medical needs before my health benefits ran out. I paid all of my immediate bills to make sure they were taken care of.

Then I settle into a state of confusion. I don’t know what day it is half the time. I lose track of time in my creative endeavors. I go to bed late and wake up late or go to bed early and wake up in the middle of the night then sleep late again. I’m depressed one minute and on top of the world the next. I’m not always self-disciplined which is why I can come off unstructured and illogical.

I need routine. I need to stick with it. Job or no job I need to set certain hours for certain things and stick to my plan. It’s only been a few weeks. I can do this.

At least I’ve been taking care of myself spiritually, creatively, and socially. Overall I am happy. Today.